Screaming Silence
by Unique .F
Summary: Sarah calls Jareth to save her. But is he too late to save her from herself? Unexpected events take a turn for the worse-or best?-and now it's up to the remaining ones to save them...Could they be lost forever? Not long at all...
1. Screaming Silence

_**Screaming Silence**_

Darkness clung to the city like a shadow. The woman walked quickly, but not hurriedly, through the streets wet with grainy puddles. Her high heels, black, clicked smartly against the tarmac as she glanced around, apprehensive, for some veiled menace. She wore a semi tight black dress, made to fit her feminine curves, that then appeared to float around her legs. Her dark brown hair was bound with glittering black clip that held the cascade of lustrous stuff back. Across her back was a large harp case which had been slung carelessly over on shoulder.

Underneath her eyes was a carefully applied layer of dark green eyeshadow, but to the trained eye of the creature swooping above, did not conceal the brutish purple bags underneath. Her face was pale white, again partly from make up's influence, but mostly it failed to disguise the waness of her unnaturally pale skin. It was obvious she had not spent long times out in the sun, nor hearty meals or sly wines, nor the usual activities of adults her age. Her eyebrows were dark, thin V's arching above tired green eyes flecked with hazel.

She was stunning, _exquisite, _a dark haired beauty, seductress. But if one could see beneath the artful dressing and carefully applied make up, the seraphic calm enforced by a career in acting, you could see the cheekbones, the flesh in the face- far too thin- the flat stomach, the gaunt appearance in general.

It had been five years,five ancient, dragging, _long _years, since her face had flushed with any colour, since any emotion but grief and passivity had overcame her, except when she was playing.

Sarah Williams' harp case banged bruisingly against her curvecious hips, tapping in time to the fast rhythum of her stride.

Her thoughts were totally engrossed by her preformance earlier that night, so much that she didn't notice the two men creeping up to her side.

Sarah was now a amatuer harpist, and had recently come to preforming in pubs and other such places for money. Since that day, five years ago, her grades had gone to trash. Now, she worked in youth centre that barely gave her the funds to rent a dingy flat. Despite the odds, she'd saved up until she could buy a harp, and a book to teach herself how to use it. Sarah's harp and preforming skills had given her extra money, which had thinned off some of her gauntness, but nothing could take away the deathly paleness in her face.

That night she'd been preforming in the local pub, _The White Hart, _with her self written piece, _Tempest Nights. _Sarah halted, closing her eyes and struggling to control herself as the men made their prescenses known.

"Hey. You."

"Me?" Sarah turned, her fists clenched.

"Aint you got someone to walk you back?" The man was flushed and red, neck puffed like a rooster. She could smell the alchohol on his breath.

"No," Sarah replied curtly, "And I don't require someone either."

Her thoughts turned to the painful subject of one man she had tried to block from her thoughts, but never could.

"Come on, pretty lady, let's have some fun," the man enjoined, leering at her lewdly.

"No."

He made a grab for her and she ducked away easily, judgement unfouled by the influence of alchohol.

The two men scowled heavily and made inarticulate gestures.

"Come on pretty lady. You give me and my mate what we want and we let you go away fine, easy peasy."

"Leave me alone," Sarah hissed, staring at them with venemous eyes, " Trust me, you don't want to try me."

"Ooh!" jeered one, throwing his hands up as if stung.

The other cackled. "Come on pretty lady."

He lumbered toward her, and she backed up. Her back came against a wall.

Eyes brightened under the thick brows as the two men realised their prey was trapped. The first man pressed her against the wall, dropping the harp case onto the floor with a wooden _bonk! _

"Go away! Get off!"

Sarah could do nothing as the man roughly caressed her body. She brought her knee with a well timed collapse and delt her assilant a good hard kick in the groin.

The man collapsed, holding himself and uttering a steady stream of curses. The other man scowled heavily and slurred, "You chose the hard way."

He grabbed her shoulder and threw her to the floor. He would have ripped her dress from her body too if she had not shouted,

"_I wish Jareth would come and save me!"_

Immediatley the snowy white barn owl clapped his wings together and dived. The thrill of the plunge did not overtake him as it did many other times, concentrating so intensely on the ailed woman was he. He flared his wings at the last moment and dove into the well of magic residing at his core.

Jareth the fae stepped cockily onto the pavement, his avian self locked within. "I wouldn't do that, if I were you."

Five years, and still his heart pounded when he saw her. Five years, and still he knew he would do anything for her. Five years, and yet Jareth still hadn't got over himself nor his defeat.

"Who're you and what d'ya want?" slurred one of the men tormenting his Sarah, his precious Sarah.

"Goblin King..." Sarah whispered from her slumped position on the floor.

"I want you to leave her alone." Jareth stepped forward, moderating his manner to one of cockiness and veiled threats.

"Oh yeah?" The guy pulled out a shiny black pistol and waved it around. The fae was afraid he'd shoot Sarah by accident.

"'Yeah'," snarled Jareth, and with one flick of a wrist summoned a crystal. "And if you don't..."

"What ya goin' t'do?" The other man hissed, kicking Sarah's side contemptuously.

She moaned in pain. That one sound dissolved the remainder of Jareth's formidable self control like nothing else could. With a flick, two burning crystals were sent flying towards the men. The first crystal ignited on one man's jacket. The other screamed and ran away.

"Sarah...Precious thing..." Jareth was almost at tears at her apathetic state.

"Don't call me that!" she snapped.

She laboured to her feet and grabbed something off the grimy floor. "I don't deserve it."

"Sarah...I'm sorry," Jareth swallowed the last of his pride and said, "for what I put you through in the Labyrinth, I-"

"Don't apologise! It should be me. I was never good enough for you..." Sarah hissed. Tears trickled down her face while Jareth looked on in disbelief.

"Good enough? Good enough? If you weren't good enough for me, precious thing, nothing ever could be! You're _perfect, _just the way you are! _I'm _the pathetic, sad, stupid fae-" Jareth began heatedly.

"How often does God make perfect creatures like you?" She whispered. "Your face, your hair, everything...You are the epitome of beauty and perfection...I am a snivelling, plain human. I don't deserve to live after what I did to you..."

She brought out the shiny black pistol and aimed it at her breast.

Jareth realised with growing horror what she intended to do. "SARAH!"

"Thank you for saving me, my love. I would die a virgin, untouched by no man but you."

Then she pulled the trigger.

Jareth leapt forward, tears blurring his eyes, hands outstretched...

A _bang._

A bone chilling scream.

Then...

Silence.

**What do you think?**


	2. Noiseless Pandemonium

_**Noiseless Pandemonium**_

The broken man sat silent, silent and screaming in the noiseless pandemonium. The fluttering, _fading_, steady, _weak _continued bleeping of an overworking, tired heart was the rhythm of his thoughts. His otherworldly, immortal thoughts.

The blinding whiteness of the medical centre, _death place, _was all around him, a colourless tribute to the falling star in their midst.

Pandemonium surrounded him, but he was on an islet of silence, of screaming silence.

_A bang._

_A bone chilling scream._

_Then..._

_Silence._

A cry.

A noiseless shout.

Then...

Flatness.

"We're loosing her!"

The voices swirled around him, the desperate hospital staff trying to save a woman long lost to the ancient movements of cold, cruel Fate.

"_I was never good enough for you..."_

And I you, my precious creature, my lonely goddess, my falling star. But she was only human, after all.

_Only human._

Oh, the cruelty of fate.

Diamond tear tracks, paving a path between the stars for her weary feet to walk, glistened down his immortal cheeks. Immortality was cruel. Fate was cruel.

"_Your eyes can be so cruel..."_

Just as I can be so cruel, my love, my beautiful, dying Sarah, my falling star.

And in the noiseless pandemonium, he reached for the black weapon of destruction, Fate's cruel instrument.

Calm settled over him.

_I'll lay my love between the stars._

And as her green eyes found his, as her dying breath left her lips, they mouthed one, last sentence, together.

_I love you._

Then there was a _bang._

A spine tingling sigh.

Then...

Noiseless pandemonium.

**You like? You going to murder me now? I can always write a sequeal, about walking the path between the stars...**

**It's deliberatley vague, by the way.**


	3. Ghosts On Water

_**Ghosts On Water**_

It was always the same question. Every time, the runners, the fairies, the Fae, the various goblins...Every time, they always asked the same question, over and over again, like the mantra of a raven haired girl's feet on the path.

"_Who rules this place? Where is the king?"_

And every time, he gave them the same answer. _"Where he's always been. Where he never left."_

They'd stare at him then, shrug their shoulders, go back to their whispers and gossip, because they could never believe the truth.

He patrolled his weary post, like a belated watchman after the invasion. Every so often, the others would visit, and they'd walk the same path together, and talk amoungst themselves quietly, ignored by the world, neglected by Fate.

"_Where is the king?"_

"_Where he's always been."_

"_Where is the raven haired woman?"_

"_Where she could never leave."_

"_Why don't they come back?"_

The dwarf would shrug, and say, _"Because of Fate."_

The only one who'd come anywhere near the dreadful truth had been Jareth's mother. She'd gazed at him with sad, soulful eyes, and whispered quietly, _"Has the silence screamed?"_

He'd reply, as he always did, _"When the pandemonium is noiseless."_

But then, on the thirteenth hour, every year at the annual Goblin Masquerade, you could see them.

_A striking man dressed in blue, dancing with a raven haired beauty in innocent white. _They'd whirl around the ballroom, passing through people like ghosts dancing on water.

If you listened very hard, you could hear them singing. In sad, quiet, otherworldly voices. Every time, the end was always the same.

_A bang._

_A screaming sigh._

_Then..._

_Silent pandemonium._

**This story is not finished...And mheheheh, don't jump to conclusions...**


	4. The Lonley Companions

_**The Lonley Companions**_

_Who where we? Where are we? Why are we here? Who are we now?_

Questions, that was all that replied. More questions.

Amnesiac, they supposed. It was the only theory that made sense...to them at least.

They wandered around, amusing themself with the changing patterns and views of wherever they were.

They were trapped-or protected?-inside a large crystal bubble, which floated inside a warm sea of red. A low _thump-thump thump-thump, _like the beat of some enormous heart, rocked their strange little sanctuary.

It was warm in the crystal, comfortable-sleeping-in-on-a-weekend-warmth.

_What's a weekend? _They asked themself.

_Amnesiac, _they'd replied.

Shrugging, they'd accepted that answer, it wasn't as if they could think of anything better.

They floated around in the bubble, needing nothing. No food-_what was food?-_no bathroom needs- _Pardon?-_only...

Each other. Themself. That was all they needed, to survive...

Fate had fused them together, robbed their memory. Had they always been like this? Was this their home? Was there any others like them?

Surprised, they blinked as the colours shifted around them, going from red to deep blue as if in answer. The lulling warmth intensified.

They were the silent screamers. The noiseless ones in the pandemonium. The ghosts on the water. They were una. One.

(((())))

_Where is my sister? Where is your King?_

Those were his questions. No one answered the probing queries of a young eight year old, though. No one but the gatekeeper. Hoggle the Coward.

Or Hoggle the Brave? Who knew. Only Sir Didymus and Ludo could have bore witness, but they never spoke of the time when they had once had a king.

Two years, and only Hoggle and Toby still searched, still believed, still hoped, for the lost pair to come back. Come back from their seperate patch of the nether and guide them into hope. Two years ago, a King had saved a Champion. Two years ago, a Champion had been fatally wounded and a King had taken her to a hospital. Two years ago, a Champion and a King disappeared without a trace.

Or did they?

All that was left of their prescence was a pistol, a pistol covered in blood and a bloodstained amulet.

Oh, of course they _tried. _The authorities and Fae councils, they _tried _to find the lost two. But not really...Jareth was only heir to the High Throne, most powerful and fearsome Fae above and below the ground, and Sarah was only the only one ever to beat the Labyrinth and it's king, after all.

But Toby did not give up.

And it was the anniversairy of their disappearance that he first heard the voice.

**Damn you for giving me a conscience! I would have been fine to leave it as a two shot and torture you all with vagueness, but hey, here I am, writing on. Still, can you guess what happened? **


	5. Goblin Prince, Goblin Prince

_Goblin Prince, Goblin Prince_

"_Goblin Prince..." **Goblin Prince, prince, prince...**_

"Yes?"

Three months ago, he'd started to hear the voice. It was a strange voice, neither male nor female, but rippling with ancient power. Sometimes it echoed, and Toby knew it was holding back for his sake, it's mind was so vast, so powerful, it would have smothered his life force as effortlessly as he would have blown out a candle. Even so, whenever it did speak to him, he had to drop whatever he was doing, as it would completely overwhelm his entire consciousness while it spoke.

It also insisted on referring to him as _Goblin Prince. _Why, he was not sure, but it did anyway and it wasn't as if Toby could stop it. It had had him take up fencing, various fitness and self defence clubs, as well as training from Hoggle in the laws, legal systems, backgrounds and stories from the Underground.

"_You are ready." **ready, ready, ready...**_

Toby would have blinked in surprise had his entire being not been completely in thrall by the voice. "What must I do?"

His own sounded pathetically small and weak.

"_Go to the gatekeeper." **gatekeeper, keeper, keeper, **"And tell him to take you on memory's path..." ** path, path, path... **_

"Will he understand?"

"_**Go**" **go, go, go, go,go...**_

Toby flinched. He'd never heard the voice so emphatic. As it left his mind, he felt the beginnings of a killer headache.

"Aww..."

A little later, Toby stood outside the gates of the labyrinth. Beside him stood Hoggle.

"I don't know why you is doing this, but I suppose I could take you as far as I can," The dwarf said to him.

"Thank you," Toby said.

He walked forward, and gently placed his hand on the glittering, orange sandstone wall. The dusty green vines shifted with dry, cracking sounds as two, great doors chased through with vine and plant appeared where there had been wall only a little while before.

And while Hoggle stood there, shaking his head and catching the flies, Toby dove deep into the belly of the labyrinth, ready to search. Search for the sister that had been lost, a Champion, A King, the ghosts on water, the screaming ones in the silence, the noiseless in the pandemonium, the lonley companions.


	6. Quiet Consolation on the Astral Plane

The Labyrinth sighed.

_All is fair in love and war, _Sareth whispered consolingly, and Toby's little spirit comforted her.

The two spirits floated on the astral physical plane, Sareth, the blend of King and Queen, and Toby, little Prince.

Together, they ruled, their entwined spirits knowing no bound, forever delighting in their life.

Occasionally, the Labyrinth would wonder, _Are you not angry with me for stranding you?_

And Sareth would laugh, and say, _How can we be? We are together, and that is all we wish._

And Toby would whisper, _I lived my life and I lived my job. I ruled the kingdom and then I died. What else should I suspect? Oh, Labyrinth, put aside your grief,_

_**For forever is not long at all.**_


End file.
